Celebrating Grandparents Day!

Sunday, September 7, 2014

We celebrated Grandparents Day at my school on Friday.

This is my grandpa. He just turned 89.

Honestly, this was new for me. I've been teaching sixth grade for more than 15 years, but it has always been in a middle school. In middle school we don't celebrate with parties, Halloween, Christmas, or Grandparents, so this year having a sixth grade class in an elementary building will be full of new experiences for me. The grandparents were invited into our classrooms for about an hour. While there they visited with their grandchildren and their friends, helped them practice for our Mentor Sentences test, and read books together. I was nervous about them coming, and not knowing what to do, but things went very smoothly. These ladies and gentlemen were amazing to speak to, and their grandkids were so PROUD!

Before our celebration day I was wrecking my brain about what we could do to celebrate these special people in our lives. I wanted to have my students write about their grandparents, but I wanted to keep it within our currciulum, and make something that where we could practice a skill. I was pressed for time because we had Monday off from Labor Day, and our computers were being rolled out so I didn't always have an entire class during the week. We had computer orientation, and various other bits and bobs. The week ended up being pretty choppy, so I decided a fun way to celebrate the amazing grandparents of my students was to write similes about them. I modeled the activity after an I Am poem, similar to Eric Carle's Quiet as a Cricket.

My kiddoes loved the project, and their grandparents loved the writing. They were laughing when reading what they were compared to.. oxes, beavers, snow globes, a monkey! The kids were pretty creative. I also wanted to have my students practice following directions. This is a big issue in my room at the moment, so I created a glyph to color as part of the activity.

Overall, the hour was a great success. If you need something quick to celebrate your grandparents you can find the activity that I made {HERE}.
Do you celebrate Grandparents Day at your school in September? I would love to hear about the activities that your school does or that you do in your classroom!